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Fencer Vulns
critical 9.8

CVE-2016-10243 json

TeX Live allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands by leveraging inclusion of mpost in shell_escape_commands in the texmf.cnf c…

published 2017-05-02 9 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2016-1428

cvss
9.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
7.1%
EPSS 7.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 94%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

TeX Live allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary commands by leveraging inclusion of mpost in shell_escape_commands in the texmf.cnf config file.

Patch / fix

  • texlive-bin Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2019.20190605.51237-2
  • texlive-base Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 2016.20161130-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2016-10243

  • texlive-base Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 2013.20140215-1ubuntu0.1
  • texlive-base Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 2015.20160320-1ubuntu0.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2016-10243

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • texlive-kastrup SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 2013.84.svn15878-21.3.1
  • texlive-kpathsea SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 2013.84.svn30218-21.3.1
  • texlive-koma-script SLE Software Development Kit 12 SP5 2013.84.3.11bsvn29774-21.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2024:1203-1

  • texlive openSUSE Tumbleweed 2021.20210325.svn34398-76.3
  • texlive-specs-a openSUSE Tumbleweed 2021.186.3.0_beta3svn33894-47.2
  • texlive-specs-b openSUSE Tumbleweed 2021.186.svn19440-46.2
  • texlive-specs-c openSUSE Tumbleweed 2021.186.svn15878-46.2
  • texlive-specs-d openSUSE Tumbleweed 2021.186.2.1bsvn15878-45.2
  • texlive-specs-e openSUSE Tumbleweed 2021.186.1.5svn55387-46.2
  • texlive-specs-f openSUSE Tumbleweed 2021.186.1.5.7svn58590-46.2
  • texlive-specs-g openSUSE Tumbleweed 2021.186.1.0svn54080-45.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11431-1openSUSE-SU-2024:11433-1openSUSE-SU-2024:11434-1openSUSE-SU-2024:11435-1openSUSE-SU-2024:11436-1openSUSE-SU-2024:11437-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2016-10243 updated cvss 7.0

texlive: mpost allows to run non-whitelisted external programs

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 texlive, texlive-ae, texlive-cm, texlive-ec, texlive-fp, texlive-lm, +304 more
    affected: no fix planned “Will not fix”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 mendexk, texlive, kpathsea, texlive-afm, texlive-dvips, texlive-latex, +5 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

7.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 94% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • scumjr.github.io https://scumjr.github.io/2016/11/28/pwning-coworkers-thanks-to-latex/ referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 9.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 7.5 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.